Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Davros sock drawer]

1 minute ago, Timmo said:

Little tip for it, if you use it with a shield that has 'no skill' then you can use its abilities whilst one-handling it with said shield.

Cool, just like the Zweihander

 

[joemul]

Had a quick 20 minute blast last night. I’m up to Altus h it it’s been bugging me that I hadn’t caught the swine while stole the lady’s jewellery in Liurnia. 
 

went back, looked through the telescope and spied where I thought he’d be. I wasnt able to reach a cordial agreement with him so had a scrap with my newly acquired twin blade. Loved it. 
 

then warped for my first go at Radhan. I’d barely spotted him before he killed me. Might explore for a while first. 

[Captain Kelsten]

16 minutes ago, Hexx said:

Is Moonveil "better" than Unchanga?

I started my alt Samurai with that and haven't looked back...

How many alts are you on now? I keep thinking of builds I’d like to try (archer, magic, fist weapons, thief type, samurai) but it’s so hard to choose! 

[Hexx]

10 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

How many alts are you on now? I keep thinking of builds I’d like to try (archer, magic, fist weapons, thief type, samurai) but it’s so hard to choose! 

 

Main Mage. Tried NG+ him but undid it to pottering around clearing up and for NPC

 

Alt Dex Melee - just got past academy. Need to mop up trophies (as moved from ps4 to ps5 early bosses need repeating) and get other endings

 

[Hexx]

1 hour ago, Broker said:

Unless anyone else finished last night, I’m guessing that will have been me finishing NG+  

 

The nerfs hit all the stuff I’ve been using but I’m not that bothered. Bloody Slash and Hoarfrost were clearly OP, and discouraged me from trying out anything else. Same with mimic. The flames spell was obviously an actual glitch. I’ve got so many materials now that it doesn’t matter much really, I’ll use one of my other +10 summons (I have 4).

 

 

The trophies are well easy in this. Dark Souls demanded 3 playthroughs and had tonnes that were tied to covenant rewards so you ended up having to farm enemies for hours if you were offline.
 

 

The disappear when the NPC moves. They just show you NPCs you have found who are still there. 

 

Wanna drop me a Bolt of Grandsoux in co op

 

[Sun Tze]

9 minutes ago, joemul said:

Had a quick 20 minute blast last night. I’m up to Altus h it it’s been bugging me that I hadn’t caught the swine while stole the lady’s jewellery in Liurnia. 
 

went back, looked through the telescope and spied where I thought he’d be. I wasnt able to reach a cordial agreement with him so had a scrap with my newly acquired twin blade. Loved it. 

Can you give me a hint regarding the thiefs location (north, south of the telescope)? I spent ages going round in circles in the area but only encountered a boss fight (which looked to be an unrelated night time event i stumbled into). 

[Hexx]

Just now, Sun Tze said:

Can you give me a hint regarding the thiefs location (north, south of the telescope)? I spent ages going round in circles in the area but only encountered a boss fight (which looked to be an unrelated night time event i stumbled into). 

 

Spoiler

He's north of her, near outskirts of town ruins

 

Spoiler

He's near a bonfire and site of grace

 

 

[imp]

Heh, reports of the nerf have been greatly exaggerated!

 

MBoM video featuring a Mimic+10 and the Sword of Night and Flame

 

Spoiler

 

 

OK, so Maybe the SoNaF nerf is actually quite severe, this build is even using the Living Jar Shard talisman for +10% damage, and it's not doing particularly crazy damage anymore, but pre-nerf the damage this sword did was flat out stupid! I had to use my real life INT to actually come up with a strategy (spawn mimic with staff so it spams spells) instead of just rocking up and spamming my sword beam.

 

MVP is ancient death rancor, which has ridiculous stagger that means you can stun-lock the boss without much trouble. I'm using it as you need both INT and FTH for the SoNaF, so you might as well use magic that is buffed by the Prince of Death's Staff which also scales sorceries with both INT and FTH, and provides bonus damage to "death magic". The video is a really sloppy example of the strat, I had much much tighter first phase fights prior to the win.

 

The mimic spamming spells is much more useful than summoning it with a melee weapon btw, it doesn't use weapon skills as often anymore and will often just rush in and spam attacks before being knocked on its arse now.

 

[imp]

@Hexx I also missed one of the legendary armaments first run. 😬

 

Just got the last of them today and the trophy STILL didn't pop! Then I read that you can drop them all and pick them back up and that should work...it did not. ThenI saw someone suggest putting them into your storage at a site of lost grace might do the trick and sure enough...it did! Damn that was nerve wracking!

 

Also, each to their own, but I don't want to reload saves for the ending trophies, so I'm gonna be doing another run through the game after this!

[Dark Soldier]

53 minutes ago, Hexx said:

Is Moonveil "better" than Unchanga?

I started my alt Samurai with that and haven't looked back...

Its base damage is roughly the same (same Dex scaling I believe) but its weapon art is wonderful. Need Int for it though.

[Alan Stock]

On 16/03/2022 at 13:03, Bushtopher said:

 

Since entering the rllmuk passwords for multiplayer, whenever I see a rllmuk glowing message I always take the time to positively appraise it in the hope that it helps a fellow adventurer out

 

(not saying it was me that saved you in this situation, but I'd like to think that it was)

 

I've not seen a single one yet, I think (I have the password on). They look kinda like messages with circles around them right? Maybe its because I am in the mid-game and many people here are closer to the end?

[John0]

Haven't seen any 'rllmuk' messages yet I don't think. Have seen a lot of bloodstains though

[Captain Kelsten]

I wonder if you could do a purely bow/crossbow run, with no spells or melee. 

[Alan Stock]

16 hours ago, StephenM said:

Sorted Rannala out tonight - not sure where I’m off to next!

 

Maybe the Manor with the hands? Only peeped in once, but that was hours ago. 

 

That's where I went next and seemed about right difficulty-wise.

[Alan Stock]

19 hours ago, Jamie John said:

Does higher DEX decrease your spell casting time in this?

 

No, it's Mind I think. The menu option that lets you drill into stat descriptions tells you when you select each stat. The speed increase per level seems very marginal though, but I have a low Mind so maybe if you pump lots of points in it would make a real difference.

 

Edit - I'm wrong, its Dex. See below

[Hexx]

Call me dumb but I only just realised that all the big bosses are named useing GRRM's initials

[Alan Stock]

5 hours ago, Curtis said:

I'm curious to see how much cheaper Smithing Stones are now, because over the past couple of nights i've spent maybe 800,000 runes on stones in preparation for the jump to NG+. 🧐

 

The patch actually sounds like they might be available from more vendors too. I really hope so because I've still not reached the progression point/NPC where you can buy Smithing Stones +1 or +2 and have about 10 weapons I can't even try because I can't get them above level 0! Glad they increased the drop rate too. It is very stingy in this game even compared to past Souls games, especially given how huge the arsenal is. It really sucks to get cool new weapons but still be forced to use your starting weapons because you couldn't afford to upgrade anything else.

[Captain Kelsten]

10 minutes ago, Hexx said:

Call me dumb but I only just realised that all the big bosses are named useing GRRM's initials

 

[Kevvy Metal]

1 minute ago, Alan Stock said:

 

The patch actually sounds like they might be available from more vendors too. I really hope so because I've still not reached the progression point/NPC where you can buy Smithing Stones +1 or +2 and have about 10 weapons I can't even try because I can't get them above level 0! Glad they increased the drop rate too. It is very stingy in this game even compared to past Souls games, especially given how huge the arsenal is. It really sucks to get cool new weapons but still be forced to use your starting weapons because you couldn't afford to upgrade anything else.

 

Replaying Demon's Souls via the PS5 remake, I forgot how easy it was to farm stones in the mines of world 2, which is where you're kinda meant to go after finishing 1-1. 
That game goes from a brutal introduction of the first level immediately to Sword +10 lol here we go!

[Dark Soldier]

32 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

 

No, it's Mind I think. The menu option that lets you drill into stat descriptions tells you when you select each stat. The speed increase per level seems very marginal though, but I have a low Mind so maybe if you pump lots of points in it would make a real difference.

It is Dex

 

 

[Alan Stock]

I beat a boss I thought was an impassable roadblock last night, and I want to hear how you lot got on with it. On the way to the plateau.

 

Spoiler

The Magma Wyrm guarding the top of the cliffside route next to the Great Lift. For reaching the Plateau I needed the other half of the pendant for the lift, but have only scratched the surface of Caelid - and that area seemed a bit too hard for my level/build so I followed advice from someone here and explored the tunnel route.

 

So got to the Wyrm and was able to summon 2 NPCs for it - the Blackguard and some big chunky guy with a giant hammer. Took them into the fight and used my Glinstone Sorcerer summon as well. I was only doing tiny amounts of damage to the boss (like around 138 dmg per hit) using my best weapons, and unfortunately I only have about 2 Strike weapons neither of which I can level up because of having no Smithing Stones +1.

 

The boss could one-shot me with any of phase 1 melee attacks, and most of the fire attacks would almost one-shot me. The worst was the spin he does which is poorly telegraphed and has a huge reach. So I kept dying in phase 1. My summons were quite survivable and doing decent damage but it took a long time, and they'd eventually die at around the bosses half HP. The fight is even more annoying because you have to wait each attempt to summon the NPCS and can only do so one at a time (why?!).

 

Getting fed up of dying I went off exploring and did a side area, but came back last night to try again. This time I tried out weapon spell buffs, with lightning making a slight improvement on my damage output but still neglibile. I finally noticed some of the tells for his melee attacks and was able to help out a tiny bit with damage in the windows where he was doing fire attacks or after his melee attacks before running away. Still, the summons were doing the huge bulk of the damage. With me now helping with attacks we were actually getting him to a stagger in phase 1 where he falls over for a critical hit. 

 

After many tries we got him down past half HP and into phase 2 where he pulls out his fire sword. Although his attacks are still very deadly, its actually less random and more predicatable than phase 1. The main problem here is that any summons still alive will die in a hit or two, leaving me with my puny damage and having to take all the aggro. The camera's also terrible here because you can hardly see his attack animations when you are up close unless you point the camera directly up.

 

Anyway, it took a few hours but I did eventually persevere, whittling away at his health bar in phase 2, though it was phase 1 where I died the most. I breathed a sigh of relief.

 

But what I'm curious about is how you folks got on with the Wyrm. For me, with my current stats/equipment, there's no way I could have managed phase 1 without all the NPC backup. It seems like its a fight designed for summons/co-op. Also my damage was so poor, but do Strike weapons fare a lot better? Has anyone here soloed the Wyrm and if so what kind of build/level were you? I am around level 48 now with very low Vit and End otherwise spread-out stats across the board. Did I maybe get past this boss too early and I should have explored Caelid and the dragonlands beyond first? I stopped after the Wyrm so I can always go back east now without seeing the plateau. Let me know!

 

[Steven]

7 hours ago, Ste Pickford said:

Had one of those disappointing sessions last night where I didn't feel I'd made any progress.  Killed two mini-bosses and pottered around the lakes a bit but didn't get anything proper done.  The best bit though was a message popped up saying someone in the password group had 'become a lord'.  I presume that means they completed the game?  Well, if that was you, last night, on PS5 'rllmuk' group, then I cheered for you!

 

Yeah, my last session felt like that in the lakes - spent a lot of time just riding around getting distracted and riding in another direction and getting distracted. The last thing I killed managed to score me the missing link to upgrade the Moonveil from plus 2 to plus 6, so that rounded it off well.

[Uncle Nasty]

@Alan Stock That boss must be weak to Faith because despite me being rubbish and slow I battered him on about my third try. Black Fireballs and +9 Falchion with a Faith buff just ruined him. I also went in naked (my strategy for most bosses) for better mobility.

[John0]

@Alan Stock Is that Magma Wrym "Makar"? I've come across a couple so not sure which one. But if so my fight is here:

 

Spoiler

As far as I remember it wasn't too bad, though did take me a few goes. I think just being ultra patient and using my shield helped. I could tank the hits I did take reasonably well as long as I stayed away from the lava. Imagine I was using the fire reducing talisman too. I guess certain fights are tough for some builds and playstyles but not much of a problem for others?

 

[Kryptonian]

23 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

I beat a boss I thought was an impassable roadblock last night, and I want to hear how you lot got on with it. On the way to the plateau.

 

  Hide contents

The Magma Wyrm guarding the top of the cliffside route next to the Great Lift. For reaching the Plateau I needed the other half of the pendant for the lift, but have only scratched the surface of Caelid - and that area seemed a bit too hard for my level/build so I followed advice from someone here and explored the tunnel route.

 

So got to the Wyrm and was able to summon 2 NPCs for it - the Blackguard and some big chunky guy with a giant hammer. Took them into the fight and used my Glinstone Sorcerer summon as well. I was only doing tiny amounts of damage to the boss (like around 138 dmg per hit) using my best weapons, and unfortunately I only have about 2 Strike weapons neither of which I can level up because of having no Smithing Stones +1.

 

The boss could one-shot me with any of phase 1 melee attacks, and most of the fire attacks would almost one-shot me. The worst was the spin he does which is poorly telegraphed and has a huge reach. So I kept dying in phase 1. My summons were quite survivable and doing decent damage but it took a long time, and they'd eventually die at around the bosses half HP. The fight is even more annoying because you have to wait each attempt to summon the NPCS and can only do so one at a time (why?!).

 

Getting fed up of dying I went off exploring and did a side area, but came back last night to try again. This time I tried out weapon spell buffs, with lightning making a slight improvement on my damage output but still neglibile. I finally noticed some of the tells for his melee attacks and was able to help out a tiny bit with damage in the windows where he was doing fire attacks or after his melee attacks before running away. Still, the summons were doing the huge bulk of the damage. With me now helping with attacks we were actually getting him to a stagger in phase 1 where he falls over for a critical hit. 

 

After many tries we got him down past half HP and into phase 2 where he pulls out his fire sword. Although his attacks are still very deadly, its actually less random and more predicatable than phase 1. The main problem here is that any summons still alive will die in a hit or two, leaving me with my puny damage and having to take all the aggro. The camera's also terrible here because you can hardly see his attack animations when you are up close unless you point the camera directly up.

 

Anyway, it took a few hours but I did eventually persevere, whittling away at his health bar in phase 2, though it was phase 1 where I died the most. I breathed a sigh of relief.

 

But what I'm curious about is how you folks got on with the Wyrm. For me, with my current stats/equipment, there's no way I could have managed phase 1 without all the NPC backup. It seems like its a fight designed for summons/co-op. Also my damage was so poor, but do Strike weapons fare a lot better? Has anyone here soloed the Wyrm and if so what kind of build/level were you? I am around level 48 now with very low Vit and End otherwise spread-out stats across the board. Did I maybe get past this boss too early and I should have explored Caelid and the dragonlands beyond first? I stopped after the Wyrm so I can always go back east now without seeing the plateau. Let me know!

 

@NexivRed

 

What was your situation? I had one go around lvl 50 or so I think and died horribly

[Alan Stock]

Yeah it was Makar. Nice vid @John0, well done. Definitely seems like a build/equipment issue. In your vid you are doing a bit more damage than me, I have a slower weapon as well. And without a shield I couldn't survive the spin or stomp attacks in phase 1 unless I got the roll timing spot on, and I was on medium equip load. In phase 2 I could survive one hit from the lesser sword attacks but not follow-ups. So although I started to get the timings down for avoiding attacks, it was such a slog and the fight took so long anyway that's why I couldn't imagine it without help - plus it was so easy to get 1-shot if you weren't careful in phase 1.

 

Interesting @Uncle Nasty that you had success with Faith, I'm also on Faith 25 but my Winged Scythe which scales with Faith wasn't doing as much damage as the halberd I used to do the fight, but my scythe is only +4 or +5 I think, whereas the halberd was +9.

 

A lot of it is down to my self-imposed difficulty curve though, I have enough runes saved to level up many times, high level smithing stones galore and tons of flask upgrades I've not used, so I could have made it much easier on myself. But as John0 proves, you don't necessarily need to do that, its more the build/tactics (and skill) to pull it off.

 

I'll post some more boss videos later on including this one. I must do some more of my diary as well, I'm falling way behind with that!

[Hexx]

God I don't want to use it but the Bastard's Stars flail is amazing

[hmm]

6 hours ago, Doctor Shark said:

The whole outside area around the manor is the legacy dungeon. 

 

I think you're miles ahead of me, so you must know this, but you're aware there's... more to the inside too, right?

[df0]

Where's the bloody entrance to the fire mountain castle thingie?

[Captain Kelsten]

21 minutes ago, hmm said:

 

I think you're miles ahead of me, so you must know this, but you're aware there's... more to the inside too, right?

Yes